Announcements
I'd like to understand how Copilot reads and prompts to user informations based on data structured in table when Generative AI answers are prompted.I gave to CP a twelve rows xlsx file as data source (I tried even with a public html page with data tabled but I'd like to avoid this way) with columns like the following:ProductCode | Description | DeliveryTime| | Stock Existence | RotationIndex |Excel file contains only text/numeric data without dynamic/calculated values.
I see here https://learn.microsoft.com/it-it/microsoft-copilot-studio/nlu-documents#supported-document-types that Excel and other tabled data formats are allowed but my experience is a bit unhappy: I see that CP is not always able to prompt me the right informations crossing rows and columns so if I ask "can you tell me the stock existence of product XXXXX?" it answer me prompting an information from the wrong column or it tells me he doesn't understand my question... My question is: have I to format data in a specific way (i.e. avoiding space character in col's name), are there naming rules for columns I'm not aware of, or is there a way more effective to submit data structured to CP to make it more efficient?
I think the problem is by default, openai retrieve text data based similarity search. Words appear next to each other are more likely to be retrieved as an answer. If you load a table, openai data model converts it into a text file like:
invoice id, invoice date, customer,
1000, 01/10/2024, Microsoft,
1001, 01/01/2024, Google.
When you ask questions about invoice 1000, copilot has a good chance to give you the correct answer because the word Microsoft is closer to 1000 than google. But generally speaking copilot is not reliable to read structured data. Microsoft staff says users need to load structured data into a power platform component for copilot to interpret data correctly.
I had a test trying to use a txt file with rows and pipeline-separated columns...first attempt worked fine, CP found the correct answer fast and effective, but then failed all other answer(I even should find a way to hide references when answer is from that file)
Under review
Thank you for your reply! To ensure a great experience for everyone, your content is awaiting approval by our Community Managers. Please check back later.
Congratulations to our 2026 Super Users!
Congratulations to our 2025 community superstars!
These are the community rock stars!
Stay up to date on forum activity by subscribing.
Valantis 633
Vish WR 301
Haque 216
